This invention relates to space lighting fittings for strip lighting particularly, but not exclusively, for fluorescent tubes.
Conventional fluorescent tube fittings are made of folded sheet material and have various arrangements for mounting to ceilings, or other fixed structures Very often, concealed fittings are used, especially with suspended ceilings, in which the tube, or more usually a bank of tubes, is concealed in a recess in the suspended ceiling and covered with a diffuser. The sheet metal fitting is usually enamelled white, though occasionally silvered reflectors are found, and collimators, which is to say grid-like arrangements of reflective strips disposed in front of the tubes, which allow direct-from-the tube light to spread only over a limited extent more or less directly below, for example, a recessed ceiling fitting, are used instead of translucent plastic sheet diffusers.
These conventional arrangements have a number of disadvantages which, however, on account of the many advantages of fluorescent lighting, generally have been tolerated and perhaps even been largely unobserved Nevertheless, there is considerable scope for improvement.
The present invention provides space lighting fittings which are considerably improved over conventional fittings and which do not have the disadvantages referred to, among which may be noted a complicated and expensive construction, inefficient use of energy, difficulties in installation and in removal for replacement and repair, generally static and inflexible disposition and hence functional but featureless and uninteresting architectural possibilities.